Funding

Climate change centre

We are pleased to announce the call for proposals for our climate change centre call. Climate change is one of our seven key research priorities. We will be investing up to £5 million (80% full economic cost) over five years, in one Climate Change Centre. The centre is expected to start in April 2019, and should work collaboratively with the newly commissioned Climate Change Network Plus.

This research centre is a major ESRC strategic investment. In addition to taking forward an ambitious research agenda and making significant economic or societal impact, it will add value by increasing research bandwidth, building capacity, encouraging interdisciplinary working in social science and beyond, and enabling research collaboration in the UK and internationally.

Scope

This new centre will be framed in the broadest sense around governance, choice and behaviours, working to enhance our understanding of global through to local climate governance, and considering behaviour change and decision pathways from an individual through to community and intergovernmental level. It is expected that proposals will frame their climate change research within the current geopolitical context, and the implications for the UK, including in meeting the Sustainable Development Goals and commitments under the 2015 Paris Agreement. Research should consider both the international context and the domestic economic and political context, for example in relation to Brexit and the role of place and local-to-regional actors in devolved climate governance.

It is expected that the successful project will be social science-led but will draw on disciplines from within and beyond the social sciences, to produce truly interdisciplinary outcomes that are required for meeting the challenges of climate change.

How to apply

The Climate Change Centre competition will be run as a two-stage application process. In the first stage, outline proposals should be submitted via the research councils' Joint Electronic Submission (Je-S) System no later than 16.00 on 15 May 2018. In July 2018, shortlisted applicants will be invited to submit full proposals (submissions during September 2018). Following peer review, shortlisted proposals will be invited for interviews early 2019, with funding decisions available in March 2019.

All proposals to this call must be led by a researcher at an eligible UK research organisation and will need to be submitted through the research councils' Joint Electronic Submission (Je-S) system. Proposals will need to show 100% fEC of the proposed research.